March 7: Kourabiedes

My previous apartment--before moving in with my manfella--was pretty close to Greektown. One of my favourite things to do early morning Saturdays was to grab a coffee from The One in The Only, take a stroll along the Danforth, enjoy the sunshine and stop in at my favourite Greek bakery Europa. I mostly partook of their amazing pistachio baklava (which I'd love to make from scratch someday), but something that always caught my eye was this big stacked pile of...something...covered in a mountain of icing sugar.

I was always a little afraid of it, because how can that much icing sugar be good? However, being the intrigued gastronome I am, I asked the shopkeep what they were. She said they were a Greek butter cookie called Kourabiedes (pronounced "kou-ra-bi-ETH-es") with almonds and spices. Upon hearing this I had only two questions:

1. "How much?" and
   
2. "Give it to me."

Mmmmm! It was a subtly-flavoured cookie with a light texture that was very enjoyable. The Greeks know what they're doing.

My favourite part of this recipe? Rolling little balls of dough by hand. I highly recommend scaling off your dough into evenly-weighted balls using a kitchen scale so that you guarantee they all come out the same size. My recipe yielded exactly 2 dozen 30 gram balls, which you then roll in ground almonds into cylinder shapes and form into crescents.

Fresh out of the oven.

Sprinkle generously with confectioners' sugar.

You could sprinkle even more sugar than this!

Opa!

I have to manually type out this recipe, so I'll post it when I get home. Look for it on my Recipes Page.

To order these "Cookies for a Cause" please click this link to donate at my Daily Bread Food Bank fundraising page.